Iraq's Scud attacks involved 88 missiles, of which 46 reached Coalition countries in the Kuwait theater of operations and 42 reached or closely approached Israel.
Iraq Watch: Information Paper Iraq's Scud Ballistic Missiles, July 25, 2000
The threat of Iraqi missiles aimed at Israel was a threat to the US coalition against Iraq--if Iraq could successfully provoke Israel to enter the war, it would potentially put the Arab allies of the US into an embarrassing position of allying themselves with Israel.
As a result, Israel was told to stay out of the war, despite the missiles that landed.
Syria has decided to take a page out of Iraq's playbook.
Actually, for all we know, they may be taking some of Iraq's old missiles as well.
In any case, Syria is threatening Israel in order to prevent a Libyan-style attack from NATO:
Former Lebanese minister Wiam Wahhab, who is close to the Syrian regime and to Hizbullah, said on July 8 that if NATO forces invade Syria, 1,000 missiles will be fired at Israel, placing it in graver danger than Syria itself.
Considering the extent that the US has gone to not put Syria in the same league with Libya, and has made themselves look ridiculous making claims that Assad had the potential to be a reformer: why is Syria making such a threat when there is no indication that NATO is about to make such an attack?
Besides, considering the less than stellar success that NATO has had so far in Libya, it is just that much more unlikely that such an attack on Syria is being planned.
It could be an attempt by Syria to head off any thought of a NATO attack.
Then again, it could just be Syria trying to show off to the Muslim world that they are able to keep the West at bay.
And that is more than what can be said about the Syrian attempt to prevent more protests.
Technorati Tag: Israel and Syria and Middle East.
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